A wide variety of dispenser cabinets for dispensing paper toweling from a roll are in commercial use. Conventionally, the paper towel rolls include bearing surfaces at opposed ends thereof. These bearing surfaces may, for example, simply comprise the open ends of a core incorporated in the roll. Other paper towel roll products exist wherein grooves or indents are formed in the paper toweling itself to form the bearing surfaces.
Regardless of the nature of the bearing surfaces incorporated in the paper towel roll product, it is well known to support the wound roll in a dispenser cabinet by means of support members attached to the cabinet housing and which include support elements engageable with the bearing surfaces at opposed ends of the wound roll to support the wound roll. During dispensing of toweling from the cabinet, the wound roll rotates on the support elements and gradually diminishes in size.
It will be appreciated that a wound roll will drop from its normal dispensing position within a cabinet if there is accidental disengagement between the bearing surfaces and the support elements. This unintentional drop-down can cause malfunctioning of the dispenser cabinet.
Inadvertent paper towel roll drop-down can occur in prior art cabinet constructions for a number of reasons. For example, a blow directed to the outside of the cabinet can cause dislodgment of the wound roll. This is particularly true if, as is often the case, the cabinet walls to which the support members are attached are constructed of relatively thin, somewhat flexible material such as plastic. Then too, a number of dispenser cabinets are adapted to dispense sheet material from a relatively large, heavy roll of material. For example, "jumbo" paper towel rolls having diameters in the order of eight inches or so are in widespread usage. The larger the roll, in general, the heavier it is, and such increased weight can also contribute to inadvertent dislodgment of the bearing surfaces from the support elements.